Amy.G said:
We are saved by grace through faith, period. In all of Paul's teachings, he makes it clear that we are saved by the grace of God, not of any works that we may do. This is the central theme of all of his teachings.
The entire NT teaches that faith in Christ only is what saves.
Is it clear that good works are essential in the process of ones sanctification and that true faith produces good works. If ones faith doesn’t produce works, then they may not have a true faith. Most Protestants believe this…
Where we disconnect at is that these good works save us.
As an Orthodox, we know that Christ says that if we love Him, we will obey Him. We must love Christ to enter into His Kingdom. We cannot love Christ without faith. We cannot be saved without His saving Passion and Resurrection. We know that without works faith is dead.
In regard to election, there's two Protestant views, and each start with the same premise of
Sola Fide (by faith alone). However, in practice, they both, by very different routes make this statement far less extreme than it seems at first glance to the Orthodox. Those Protestants who believe in the possibility of losing ones salvation (as do the Orthodox), acknowledge that repeated, unrepented sin will cause you to lose your salvation, because those who so indulge will eventually end up with a conscience so hardened that faith will die. Thus, works are necessary to salvation in that position.
Those who believe that one cannot lose one's salvation use a different expedient. It is clear that many people who initially live in a very godly manner eventually turn their back on God. Those who believe in eternal security usually deal with such cases by saying that those in such circumstances never had true faith. However, existentially, such a person is indistinguishable during his/her pious stage from someone who will in fact persevere to the end.
One cannot know whether one is merely deluding oneself or one has true faith. Only perseverance to the end, which involves good works done out of gratitu for God, demonstrates the genuineness of the faith in that position. However, this too is not so far from saying that works are necessary to salvation at least existentially.
Also, the Orthodox concur that faith is the greatest of works (although this work too is a gift of God--we only offer back to God that which He first gives to us). Thus, the person who is converted on his death bed or on a cross (as the thief), though he/she has no material works, does in fact have the work of faith. This is not so far, in concept if not in terminology, from the position held on this subject by either school of Protestantism.
I derive no great theories about what goes on in God's eternal counsels (which is why I don’t judge Catholics or any other). Certainly, our widow's mites of work add nothing to God's infinite supply of Goodness. Still, He honors them. We, on earth, see the necessity of works for ourselves to appropriate the free gift of God of salvation. To go beyond that into speculations about the exact function of grace and works seems to lead us back to this conclusion in the end.
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